Jun TeoCommunity Manager · retainer consultingSingaporeGrowing Team·1h ago00
Runs a paid member community for a professional association. Around 400 people in it, maybe 25 pay for anything else we sell. The rest treat it like a free help desk — they ask, they get answers, they disappear.
I've stopped posting as much myself, because every time I do I feel like I'm the one doing free consulting. My team has started resenting it too, which I don't love hearing at standups.
Do I put the community behind the paid wall and lose most of it, or is there something in between? I genuinely don't know if I'm running a community or a lead magnet someone forgot to close.
CONTEXT AT PUBLICATION
What a useful answer should help achieve
A decision they can act on this quarter about whether to gate the community or keep it open, and what that does to revenue.
Already tried
Pulled back their own posting and asked the team to do the same.
Constraints and unknowns
Small team, no marketing budget, association board that sees the open community as a membership benefit.
Community Manager · retainer consulting · Growing Team · This snapshot stays with the question when the author updates their profile.
